HOW TO READ A BOOK by Mortimer J Adler

Author:Mortimer J Adler [Adler, Mortimer J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2011-12-21T02:07:52+00:00

In the second place, there is the problem of synonyms. You know in general that synonyms are words which have the same meaning or closely related shades of meaning. A pair of synonyms is exactly the opposite of a single word used in two ways.

Synonyms are two words used in the same way. Hence one and the same term can be represented by two or more words used synonymously.

We can indicate this symbolically as follows. Let X and V be two different words, such as "enlightenment" and "in- sight." Let the letter a stand for the same meaning which each can express, namely, a gain in understanding. Then Xa and Ya represent the same term, though they are distinct as words. When I speak of reading "for insight" and reading "for enlightenment," I am referring to the same kind of reading, because the two phrases are being used with the same meaning. The words are different, but there is only one term here for you as a reader to grasp.

You can see why this is important. If you supposed that every time an author changed his words, he was shifting his terms, you would make as great an error as to suppose that every time he used the same words, the terms remained the same. Keep this in mind when you list the author's vocabulary and terminology in separate columns. You will find two relationships. On the one hand, a single word may be related to several terms.

On the other, a single term may be related to several words.

That this is generally the case results from the nature of language in relation to thought.

A dictionary is a record of the usage of words. It shows how men have used tlie same word to refer to different things, and different words to refer to the same thing. The reader's problem is to know what the author is doing with words at any place in the book. The dictionary may help sometimes, but if the writer departs in the least from common usage, the reader is on his own.

In the third place, and finally, there is the matter of phrases. A phrase, as you know, is a group of words which does not express a complete thought as a sentence does. If the phrase is a unit, that is, if it is a whole which can be the subject or predicate of a sentence, it is like a single word. Like a single word, it can refer to something being talked about in some way.

It follows, therefore, that a term can be expressed by a phrase as well as by a word. And all the relations which exist between words and terms hold also between terms and phrases. Two phrases may express the same terms, and one phrase may express several terms, according to the way its constituent words are used.

In general, a phrase is less likely to be ambiguous than a word. Because it is a group of words, each of which is in the context of the others, the single words are more likely to have restricted meanings.

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